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Uraninite used to be known as pitchblende (from pitch, because of its black color, and blende, a term used by German miners to denote minerals whose density suggested metal content, but whose exploitation, at the time they were named, was either unknown, impossible or not economically feasible). The mineral has been known at least since the 15th century from silver mines in the Ore Mountains, on the German/Czech border. The type locality is the historic mining and spa town known as Joachimsthal, the modern day Jáchymov, on the Czech side of the mountains, where F. E. Brückmann described the mineral in 1772.[3][5] Pitchblende from the Johanngeorgenstadt deposit in Germany was used by M. Klaproth in 1789 to discover the element uranium.[6]

All uraninite minerals contain a small amount of radium as a radioactive decay product of uranium. Marie Curie used pitchblende, processing tons of it herself, as the source material for her isolation of radium in 1898.[7]